Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects — from Islam to Mathematics, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not only a textbook of definitions, but each volume also provides trenchant, provocative, balanced discussions of the central issues in a given topic.
How many Oxford’s Very Short Introductions are there?
The series began in 1995, and today there are around 700 titles published. Oxford’s Very Short Introductions range from worth reading to wonderfully appealing. They’re well written by leaders in their area, thought-provoking, and insightful. Expert authors curated facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make often challenging topics highly readable. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
With over 700 titles, many more in development, and regularly updated new editions, the series constantly evolves to reflect a contemporary readership. Whatever your area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates you, the series is an indispensable and accessible guide that will enrich your understanding.
Since I absolutely love Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series, and they are extremely informative books, I decided to curate 40+ the best books from Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series. They will make a useful addition to your bookshelf.
If you like this list, you should definitely check out 73 Beautiful Books from the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series.
When you travel quickly, time slows down, space constricts, and you gain weight. If you move quickly enough, you may reach jumbo jet weight, become flattened and smaller than a CD, and live forever! It’s not necessary for a triangle’s angles to add up to 180 degrees. Naturally, there are also black holes. These are only a few of the amazing effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Despite the fact that Einstein made these discoveries more than a century ago, the general public is still largely ignorant of them. This book seeks to introduce the interested layperson to the topic of relativity in a way that is both approachable and interesting and, at the same time, academically rigorous. It is full of intriguing tales and exciting accounts of experiments. This VSI crams a lot of information into a small amount of space and uses only a few equations, none more difficult than the Pythagoras Theorem. For anyone who has been intimidated by Einstein’s revolutionary theory, it provides the ideal place to start
What is the contemporary computer’s fundamental structure? How does it function? How has it been feasible to fit more and more compact devices with such a large amount of power? What will the upcoming computer generations look like? In this Very Short Introduction, Darrel Ince examines the fundamental ideas that underlie all computers, the hardware and software advancements that made them so compact and widely used, the problems that the computer revolution created, particularly brand-new forms of cybercrime and security concerns, the Internet and the emergence of “cloud computing,” and the promise of completely new vistas that quantum computing and computing with DNA hold.
Everyone can see and experience the phenomenal development of computer-related technology over the past 60 years. However, outside of the field of computer science, the science supporting this technique is less well known and understood. Computer science is one of the most important new scientific fields after the Second World War, along with fields like molecular biology and cognitive science.
Subrata Dasgupta discusses the conceptual foundation of computer science and sheds light on some less well-known subjects in this Very Short Introduction. He challenges the notion of computer science as a science of the artificial by discussing algorithms, programming, sequential, and parallel processing while taking into account new contemporary concepts like biological computing and cognitive modeling.
